Elongate medical instruments, such as catheters, are utilized in many types of medical interventions. Many such instruments are utilized in what have become known as “minimally invasive” diagnostic and interventional procedures, wherein small percutaneous incisions or natural orifices or utilized as entry points for instruments generally having minimized cross sectional profiles, to mitigate tissue trauma and enable access to and through small tissue structures. One of the challenges associated with minimizing the geometric constraints is retaining functionality and controllability. For example, some minimally invasive instruments designed to access the cavities of the blood vessels and/or heart have steerable distal portions or steerable distal tips, but may be relatively challenging to navigate through tortuous vascular pathways with varied tissue structure terrain due to their inherent compliance. Even smaller instruments, such as guidewires or distal protection devices for certain vascular and other interventions, may be difficult to position due to their relatively minimal navigation degrees of freedom from a proximal location, and the tortuous pathways through which operators attempt to navigate them. To provide additional navigation and operational functionality options for minimally invasive interventions, it is useful to have an instrument platform that may be remotely manipulated with precision, such as the robotic catheter system available from Hansen Medical, Inc. under the tradename Sensei®. The elongate instruments associated with such a system may be navigated not only within the cardiovascular system, but also within other body lumens and cavities, such as those of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, urinary, and reproductive systems to address various maladies of the body, including but not limited to various paradigms cardiovascular disease. One such cardiovascular disease area of interest is hypertension, or high blood pressure, and it has been found that aspects of hypertension may be controlled with denervation therapy of the nerves of the renal plexus adjacent the renal artery. It would be valuable to have further interventional options than are presently available to address renal plexus denervation therapy.